Til Monday Comes in Sight
by Dark Rabbit
Summary: There's only one man on Earth who understands why going through the portal messed him up so bad. Ironic, Tony thinks, that it should be Loki... Tony and Pepper are together, which doesn't stop our hero from looking around for somebody who understands what he's going through. There's your lover, and that's one thing, and then there are the drinking buddies that you destress with.
1. Of Odin's Dumb Ideas, and Other Things

"A couple of drunken nights rolling on the floor  
Is just the kind of mess I'm looking for.  
I'm gonna dream 'till Monday comes in sight  
I want to see the bright lights tonight

Meet me at the station don't be late  
I need to spend some money and it just won't wait  
Take me to the dance and hold me tight  
I want to see the bright lights tonight."  
– Richard Thompson

**Iron Man, and The Avengers, and all situations and characters thereof, belong strictly and solely to Marvel Comics. This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material benefit.**

So Thor's father's got this idea that the way to make Loki pay for his crimes is to send him to Earth and have him make up for some of the damage he caused there. Crazy, right? He destroyed half of New York, did his best to subjugate the entire planet, so you send him right back there again? To do what, to _fix_ things there? Tony's recommendation would have been a nice padded cell, maybe one for Daddy-Who-Wants-Him-to-Fix-Stuff right next door. The Cap gets wind of it though, and he's like, "This is the greatest idea in the history of ideas. This will totally work." He references the Depression (OF COURSE): Apparently Roosevelt couldn't be satisfied just _giving_ food to hungry people; he had to make them work for it first.

Steve's like, "Don't you see? It works even better for Loki, because he's the one who _broke_ all this stuff in the first place." Yeah okay Steve, point well taken, but did you have to move him into Avengers Tower to do it?

Not that Tony cares. He's been staying in California most of the time anyway. He's got a lot of stuff to do, new ideas for the suit, modifications, and then new modifications that he doesn't think of until he sees the old ones in action. He's got Pepper in California (where she won't give up her apartment in Century City no matter how much he coaxes her). He's got his friends here. Rhodey's stationed sort of semi-permanent at Edwards Air Force Base, and Happy is very happy with the house he's bought himself in Woodland Hills, thank you very much. Why the fuck would he want to go back to New York? You know what? Screw New York.

Screw Loki too. ...Screw Cap. – Tony hears he has Loki picking up rubble from destroyed buildings. Serve him the fuck right. It's good enough for him. – Screw Bruce. He hears he's been fucking with Loki ever since he moved in. He pretends he's going to let the Other Guy out. Steve says Loki's pretty good at pretending not to be scared, but sometimes you can see a little something in his eyes. Tony tries not to feel guilty when he hears it. Jesus Christ, this is _Loki_ we're talking about, am I right? _ Loki_, who never stopped putting Bruce down from the first moment he saw him. _Loki_, who tried to fuckin' destroy his home town.

If New York was his home town. Which it isn't. Fuck New York. Fuck Loki... – You know what? Fuck Bruce as well.

...Okay, so Bruce, and Steve, and Loki are in New York. Tony's in California, where there's skiing, and windsurfing. – There's more hot chicks than you can shake a stick at. And there's Pepper of course, who means more to him than any number of hot chicks, in any combination. ...There's his work, which is important, and groundbreaking, and... Did he mention the windsurfing? Wonderful sport, windsurfing. He's never tried it yet, but if he wanted to, it would be important to have the Pacific right nearby. Like right out his back window, nearby.

And the only thing is, sometimes he gets to thinking about the portal. – No, he's always thinking about the portal, it's like, literally in his mind, _all the time_. – Sometimes he gets to thinking _more_ about the portal. It's the one thing about the invasion that he can't talk about with anyone, because none of the others went through anything like that. Sometimes it's like he's living it all over again: He's got the missile in his arms, he's shooting straight upward... Up, up, through the clouds, and he sees this hole looming in front of him. He can see into the hole. That's the point, you know? He can see into it, not a lot, but he gets these glimpses. There's this whole world on the other side, this whole, alien world. And it's _different_, it's just so fucking different.

No one else in the whole world can understand about that, because no one else has ever been to another dimension and come back to talk about it. He's not going to tell Pepper, that's for sure. She's just going to get this expression on her face again like she's _sorry_ for him. People don't feel sorry for Tony Stark. He's a fucking genius, and a billionaire, and he can get any girl he wants, any_time,_ anywhere. But he can't tell Rhodey either. Sometimes he gets the idea that Rhodey thinks he's cracked. Not good-cracked, the cool kind where it makes your musical taste better and your ideas edgier. _Really_ cracked. Like, Howard-Hughes-at-the-end-of-his-life, Kleenex-boxes-on-your-feet-instead-of-shoes kind of cracked. ...And he can't tell Happy, because he never tells Happy any of the dark stuff. It just makes his face go all sad, and then Tony gets this feeling like he kicked a puppy.

Time goes by, and some other stuff happens. Let's spell it out in little short words: New suit-idea. Marathon work-session. JARVIS disabled; fucker couldn't shut up about the food, and the fucking _sleep_. One glass of Scotch, then two. That's all it takes on an empty stomach, and when you haven't slept in two days. It occurs to Tony that there is _somebody_ else in the world who knows about other dimensions. It occurs to him that maybe he didn't like them either. Maybe that's part of why he was so crazy by the time he got to New York.

...It occurs to him that he doesn't have to just sit there _wondering_, he could go find out for himself. It's his fuckin' Tower the guy's staying in, after all.


	2. Loki's Inter-Dimensional Memories

Drunk-Tony's a good planner. It's... He doesn't know what time it is in Los Angeles. It's not dark. It hasn't been dark in a long time. – How the fuck does he know if it's been dark? He's been down in the goddamn workroom. – It's daytime. Daytime in L.A. means nighttime in New York. This logic always works, except so early in the morning that no one in their right mind is up yet. Nighttime means Loki's home from the clean-up job the Cap gave him. It also means a lot of Avengers around that he doesn't really want to run into.

They might not think what he's doing makes a whole lot of sense.

They would be wrong. Because this makes the most sense than anything he's done in a long time, if not ever. Because seriously, how's a person supposed to go on living like this? How long is he supposed to pretend everything's normal, when he's been through a fucking _wormhole_, and into a world that's like if M.C. Escher and H.P. Lovecraft had a baby, and that baby had the world's worst nightmare? Someone answer that, okay? Will someone please just answer?

Drunk-Tony is a good flier. Drunk-Tony doesn't have any caution, like Regular-Tony, and JARVIS is there in case he has trouble with navigation. New York's just a hop, skip and a jump away. The single malt's still in the decanter in the penthouse kitchen. Tony wonders if Loki... No, he _knows_ Loki comes out and takes some sometimes. You can't fall through as many dimensions as he has, and not need a drink now and then. He takes it, goes to pour a glass right now. Pouring doesn't work so well with the gauntlets on though, so he takes a drink right out of the bottle.

...Loki's on Steve's floor. That's good. Lots of healthy exercise, means the old Capsicle sleeps like a rock, most nights. No terrors for him. – No dreams at all, probably. ...Lot of rooms on this floor. Tony opens doors. He finds Steve right away. Then he finds the bathroom. No Loki. Maybe he's escaped. – Flown the fuckin' coop. Wait'll Cap wakes up and sees that. ...Next door's his though. He's in there. Tony barges right in and sits down on the bed. It's his fuckin' Tower, am I right?

Loki blinks sleepy green eyes. He opens his mouth in a big, pink yawn. Sleepy-Loki looks like a cat, like your mother's cat, asleep on the foot of her bed: You pet her, and she wakes up and yawns... Right before she scratches your fuckin' eyes out. "Who..." Another yawn. "What..." He blinks. "S-Stark? Why are you here?"

"I came to wake you up," sounds like the most reasonable answer in the world, to him, but Loki doesn't seem to think it makes much sense. "Listen," Tony tells him. "I'm too sober. You're too sober. We're both too sober right now. What do I have to say to get you out of here and into someplace more fun? There's got to be someplace open, right? New York's a 24-hour town."

"It's 10 o'clock at night," Loki says. "I am sure there are many places open..." –

"So what's stopping us from..." –

"The question," he says, "is why I should go anywhere with you?" "Because I tell you to. It's my fucking Tower, and I tell you to." Tony grabs Loki's wrists. Even through the gauntlets, they feel thin, very thin, and he can feel the bracelets Thor's told him about, that he wears to seal his magical powers, clinking tinnily against his own chrome-finished hands. "Why don't we just say because I'm an Earthling who needs your help. That's what you're on Earth for, right? To help us? Fine then, help me. I want to talk to someone who understands about other dimensions."

Other dim-_dimensions_..." Loki must really want to be drunk, because how bad can Earth-liquor be, compared to the Asgardian stuff he's used to. Either that or maybe those bracelets he wears seal his … – What would it be? His stamina? Maybe they seal his stamina. Anyway, he gets drunk really quickly, and once he's drunk, he takes Tony a whole lot more seriously. "I _understand_ other dimensions, Stark!"

"Tony." It's important he should understand that they're friends now. "Call me Tony."

"Tony. I understand, Tony." Loki's green eyes are dark. His cheeks are a little bit flushed, which just makes the rest of his face look paler. He'd look really, really fuckable, if Tony were into that. ...If he were still into that... If Pepper weren't in his life, so now he's only into her, and he's okay with that, really. Loki's a _friend_, what you might call a drinking buddy. He blinks those sleepy green eyes of his, looking very, very solemn. "So many universes have I fallen through!"

"None of them good, right?" Tony's got a bottle in front of him, which is a good thing, because otherwise the bartender might get the idea to cut them both off sometime soon. He's seen it happen. He's not saying it _would_ happen, but he's seen it happen. Better to be prepared. So he fills his and Loki's glasses again and he waves the bottle around some to emphasize his words. "Nothing you'd ...want to see in any of them?"

"No." Loki shakes his head. "None of them like..." He stares at Tony. "None of them like Asgard... – Why are we here again?"

Why are they here? That's easy. That would be because... Because... "Dammit," he says, "do you know this is the first time I can't remember? That's why we're here, Loki, because do you ever forget, any other time? Because I sure don't."

"_No_!" Loki looks like he's been wrapped in layers of pink, fuzzy vodka-tinted cloud. He looks happy... This is the first time he's ever seen Loki looking happy, Tony realizes. "No, Tony, I do not. I don't remember the Bifrost, or the Void, or ...Or the Other..." He swallows, and his face goes pale again.

"Too much reality." Tony fills his glass and shoves it his way. "You're too sober, my friend. Way too sober."

Loki drinks, and he smiles. "You're right." He refills the glass and drinks again. "There is nothing that cannot be solved with enough... – What is this called again?"

"Scotch." –

"There's nothing that cannot be solved with enough time and enough Scotch. But it is the Scotch that is important, Friend Tony. Never let yourself forget that."

...It's sometime after that, that they move to the karaoke room. Tony is badass on "Highway to Hell", if he does say so himself, and he still gets fits of laughter when he remembers that how Loki sounded when he convinced him to try "Muskrat Love". Both of them spend some time laughing. More drinks are imbibed. Maybe later on, some kissing happens, he's not going to say it doesn't; not a lot of kissing though, not enough to get anybody's girlfriend worried. These are just _stress_-kisses, the kind a guy shares with a friend of his, when they get together to blow off some steam. The kind of thing he might share with Rhodey... Only you know, if Rhodey were hotter and stuff.

Later on, he wakes up flat on his face in Avengers Tower. ...On Steve's floor of Avengers Tower, and in Loki's bed. They're both still wearing their undershorts though, so it's okay. A guy can't cheat on his girlfriend if he's wearing undershorts. The suit's in the corner. Loki's still fast asleep. Tony tries to get out of bed without waking him, but he isn't very successful. Loki opens his eyes and yawns that pink cat-yawn of his again.

"You are leaving?"

_Whatever gave you that idea, Sherlock?_ "Uh... Yeah."

"Good," he says. "You do not belong here." "No." "You never should have come here. Now go away, it is 5:30 in the morning, and I still may sleep another hour, before I must wake for the job you mortals have given me." Loki rolls over. Now all Tony can see of him is one bare shoulder, and a plaid, undershort-covered butt. He tells himself that's just as well. "Bye, Loki."

"Do not come back,Stark."


End file.
